The Agency

Prologue

Writing has always been a passion of mine. Ever since I was a little girl and my dad took me to get my first ever book. Ok, Sue me! It was Doctor Seuss' green eggs and ham, but the pictures were cute and it was so catchy and my five-year-old self was bound to love it. Then when I was seven and I went through my fairy tale princess phase that I begged my parents to let me have a princess themed party for my eighth birthday. It ended up being one of my best childhood memories.

Now, I can imagine what you're thinking. Other kids have had Disney be a part of their life, what makes it different to you that you absolutely adore writing? When I was eleven and I started secondary school, I wasn't much of a social person, which is something that I haven't grown out of much. I was that quiet shy girl that sat at the corner of the room and was the last person to get picked for in group presentations. Mum said it was because it was such a huge change in my life. I was sensitive, so I kept myself to myself. Rather than finding me in the canteen in school, I was holed up in the library, trying out my first ever novel (without pictures). You could imagine how excited I was. Books were my best friends. Something I could turn to. Hide myself in and imagine I was a completely different person. Not someone who was shy, awkward and plain. Outside the fantasy world I conjured up I was plain Jane, Sadie's younger sister.

I was twelve when Mr Bentsen the librarian asked me whether I wanted to join the world book day competition. The prize was a stack of romance novels including my favourite, The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. No one really took part in those competitions back then but I clearly remember my first ever piece of writing. It was about a girl who moved into a town and met a boy her age there. He was her only friend because everyone else had found her strange for being a foreigner. However, the boy had ended up being a figment of her imagination, someone who she could talk to and rely on when everyone else would turn away. I called that book Boy Imagine. An older student in her final year ended up winning because she was more experienced but Mr Bentsen and the other library staff praised me for the emotion portrayed throughout the story. I was filled with pride. It was the first time I had felt good about myself.

After that writing became an addiction. My sole purpose in life was to write. I can tell you now that English became my favourite subject in High School and I aced my GCSE in it with a click of a finger. A level English, I found was much harder but writing, writing, writing. It was all I could think about. In the morning I'd wake up with a thought in my head, and at night, ideas invaded my dreams. I'd write tonnes of stories, all romances. I'd write about teenage girls who'd dream about meeting their Prince Charming. About lonely widows finding true love again. The stories always had evil stepmothers and ugly stepsisters, in the end the plot would always twist to accompany the protagonist's victory at seeking out their soul mate. In time I had even written as an agony aunt in a local magazine to younger girls about their love life.

It was a surprise though that my own love life was non-existent. How could someone like me write with such passion and emotion and find love in fiction.

But when it came to reality...

I sucked.

I sucked because I was that girl who could make you laugh until you cried. I was the girl who listened to my (small) group of friends gossip about boys and the different bases. I wasn't sexy and tall, nor was I glamorous.

I was the girl that you would point at and laugh.

Because I was the girl who'd never been loved.